Methods and systems of this kind serve for archiving data of one or several client stations on an archive station. Archiving of data on a central archive station has the advantage of a better security regarding data loss and data theft. An archive station can be installed in an especially secured room, which is not always possible at client- or workstations. Further it is easier to make backup copies of the stored data of the archive station on a regular basis, than of a plurality of client stations.
However, a central archiving comes with the requirement that the data has to be transferred between the client stations and the archive station and that different customers or users share the archive station. This requires special security provisions. It is known, for this purpose, to encrypt the data of the client station, before it is transmitted to the archive station, and to decrypt it again after it is transmitted back from the archive station. In the encryption for example a smart card, a so-called “token”, can be used in which the key is stored and which is protected by a password.
Passwords have the disadvantage that they can be forgotten, exchanged or written down by the user and than be stolen. The same applies for encryption hard- and software. It can be stolen as well or at least the documentation necessary for a reproduction can be stolen. Therefore it is often relatively easy for hackers to access the archived data. A further weakness are the operating systems of client and archive station, which have generally a plurality of security holes. Further, at known systems, for installation and use, i.e. in particular the archiving of data, often a plurality of user interactions are necessary, which costs working time and increases the fault frequency. The requirements user-friendliness, reliability and security are achieved at the known systems only imperfect or unbalanced.
WO 2004/046899 describes a method for storing music data of an MP3 player on a PC. This document mentions to use a seed within the header of the data and the number stored in the header serves for identification of the data and is not a key. No separate storing of data and seeds is provided. The source and the final location contain non encrypted data, so encryption is used only for transmission. The key is newly generated for each transmission and stored parallel with the data. The key has two parts, a constant and a variable. The variable is generated for each transmission and transmitted within the header of the data but the key is not transmitted. The receiver takes the variable from the head and generates the key from the variable and the constant. When data have arrived a the final location they are not encrypted and can be used several times. There is no separate means for encryption that is physically separated from the client station and the document defines no method to secure archived data when the player is stolen. No method is shown for replacing a defect or stolen device. U.S. Pat. No. 5,940,507 shows a method where the source contains non encrypted data and the destination contains encrypted data. The transmitter of the source encrypts data with a key that is itself-encrypted. At the location safe encrypted data and the encrypted key is stored in parallel. If a third person wants to read the stored data from the safe an authorizing key is needed that is given only by the transmitter. With this special key first the encrypted key is decrypted an afterward the data are decrypted with this key. There is no third key nor is there a safeguard against reading of the first key from the location.